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 The world's biggest automaker said it was not aware of any crashes
or injuries caused by the glitches, which were found in 27 Toyota
models including the RAV4 and Yaris subcompact.
Toyota said faults were also found in the Pontiac Vibe and the
Subaru Trezia, two models the automaker built for General Motors and
Fuji Heavy Industries.
The automaker did not say now much the recalls would cost, and it
was not clear if the faults stemmed from Toyota's suppliers or its
manufacturing process.
The move by Toyota to announce five different recalls on a single
day from Tokyo comes as major automakers face increasing scrutiny in
the United States on how quickly they take preventive safety action
and how quickly they share information with regulators and the
public.
Toyota agreed last month to pay $1.2 billion to the U.S. government
for withholding information related to unintended acceleration in its vehicles.
That safety crisis had caused Toyota to recall more than 9 million vehicles.
In a high-profile case that has the potential to change U.S. safety
regulation, Toyota rival General Motors is under investigation for
failing to act on a known ignition switch defect linked to a dozen
deaths. The company has recalled 1.6 million vehicles over the
issue.
In the largest of the recalls announced on Wednesday, Toyota said
some 3.5 million vehicles were being recalled to replace a spiral
cable that could be damaged when the steering wheel is turned. That
could cause the air bag to fail in the event of a crash, the
automaker said.
In total, about 2.34 million of the vehicles to be recalled were
sold in North America. Another 810,000 were sold in Europe.
In the second-largest of the Toyota recalls, some 2.32 million
three-door models made between January 2005 and August 2010 are
being recalled to check for a fault in the seat rails that could
cause the seat to slide forward in a crash, risking injury for the
driver or passengers.
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The other recalls are for faulty steering column brackets,
windshield wiper motors and engine starters.
The recall announcement, which came during late afternoon Tokyo
trade, knocked an additional 2 percent off Toyota's already sagging
shares.
They quickly pared the extra losses, however, and ended down 3
percent at 5,450 yen, reflecting an overall weak tone in the market
where the benchmark Nikkei average fell 2.1 percent.
Toyota's 6.39 million vehicle recall is the largest announced on a
single day for the company since October 2012, when it called back
7.43 million Yaris, Corolla and other models to fix faulty power
window switches.
In the first two months of 2014, major automakers had announced 18
separate recalls in the United States, now the second-largest auto
market behind China, according to the latest data compiled by the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The recent wave of large-scale recalls represents a source of
revenue for auto dealers who are paid by manufacturers to service
defective cars.
(Reporting by Andreas Cremer in Berlin, Laurence Frost in Paris and
Chang-Ran Kim in Tokyo; editing by Miral Fahmy and Ryan Woo)
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